Safari 1.0 Beta

Why build a new browser? That's the question on everyone's lips since Apple released Safari 1.0 Beta in January. The OS X-only browser shares its open-source foundations with Konqueror, a standalone browser and the file manager for the Linux KDE Desktop Environment. Apple says it improved on the tiny Konqueror kernel to meet its goal -- a lightning-fast browser. Even in beta, we found Safari acceptably fast. But Safari lacks compelling innovations and doesn't offer the advanced customisation or security features of Internet Explorer for Mac, Opera or even open-source Chimera. Try Safari if you're really sick of Internet Explorer (it's free, after all), but we're hoping Apple fattens Safari up a bit before it feeds this browser to the lions.